Messages - Dave Michuda

Here's the first mix of the new year. Antique Sunlight is another piano based mix. Not sure why I decided to do a piano mix, I guess I just came across a few piano tunes in my regular listening & now here it is.

I can never limit my choices to a top ten list. I keep track all year & trim it down as the year comes to a close. So somehow this year I ended up with the random number of 24 in my "Best of" list. Here is the list in alphabetical order...

Alio Die - aura seminalis - alio die released some great music this year. I guess I could group all of them together here but I'll list this as my favorite. The cd "tries to recreate the solemn atmospheres of the courts of the Italian Renaissance", and amazingly it comes off as transcendent instead of cheesy. Stefano Musso's recent releases all do this very well, like his collaboration with vocalist Martina Galvagni, Elusian Lullaby. He takes concepts, that would not work in the hands of another, and makes them work beautifully.

Arve Henriksen - cartography - a beautifully layered recording from trumpeter henriksen. Texture is more important than virtuosity here. A melancholy, tranquil landscape works perfectly with Henriksen's vocal-like trumpet.

Deaf Center - vintage well - More great cinematic music. I guess there was a lot of fantastic cinematic music this year.

Disturbed Earth - Butterfly - An excellent ambient release from Atmoworks. From a live "living room" concert in August 1977. The albumwas recorded live with no overdubs using a double neck guitar and a violin bow on the 12-string and playing the 6-string. He used two tape decks set up about 8 feet apart in a continuous loop. A classic ambient feel that is even more amazing knowing how & when it was recorded.

Elbow - Live from London – Beautiful, intimate, live iTunes only release. Any fan of Elbow MUST own this.

Elbow - the seldom seen kid – There isn’t any other band that evokes beauty, melancholy & joy like Elbow. This is an absolutely fantastic recording.

Eluder - the most beautiful blue - deep layers that never get too dark or too light. A just right mixture of drifting textures & aquatic sounds.

Grouper - Dragging a Dead Deer Up A Hill - a good collection of eerie folk songs wrapped in reverb & hazy ambience.

Hans-joachim Roedelius & Tim Story - inlandish - I love how this release sounds old & new at the same time. Some of the tunes just have this indescribable retro Roedelius feel to them, like the song "Beforst". A warm, melodic beauty.

Jacaszek – treny – Real instruments played by real musicians with some electronic manipulation make this a stellar release in a year filled with great cinematic music.

Jeff Pearce - Rainshadow Sky – I know this one is a bit too close to New Age for some regular forumites, but I found it to be beautiful without being too sappy.

Johann Johannsson – fordlandia – This cd from Johannsson takes the cinematic/orchestral theme of this year to another level. He does it with a 60 piece orchestra, piano, organ, choir & electronics. The music is lush and intense.

Marconi Union - a lost connection – more dubby ambient music. I listened to a lot of dubby stuff this year & Marconi Union does this style wonderfully.

Martin Grech - march of the lonely – this one actually came out in 2007 but I discovered it right at the beginning of this year and I listened to constantly from then on. From an online review “…a moody acoustic delicacy, dreamlike calm and layered vocals which recall monastic plainsong or a lovelorn choir.”

Steve Roach - a deeper silence – I played this for days all through the house, the slow washes & low bass hum rumbling from room to room. I felt like I was on some inter-stellar spacecraft. Great sleep music too.

the caretaker - Persistent repetition of phrases - Similar to his other releases in that it sounds like he is channeling the haunting atmospherics of The Shining. However, this one is a bit more ambient.

---- I know these don’t count as actual releases, but I think I listened to the guitar mixes of Alan Lockett more than anything else this year. You can find them here… http://albient.livejournal.com/2468.html . These mixes are a great collection of ambient guitar meanderings that introduced me to a lot of new artists & music.

Here in Wisconsin we've settled into a pattern of one storm after another with little time for the accumulation to recede. We are going to get another foot tonight, then more over the weekend & more next week. The worst part is my snowblower broke! So our fairly large driveway will have to be done the old fashioned way...tell the kids to get out there & shovel!

The TV station I work at is gearing up for "storm center" all out coverage. It's Wisconsin for chrissake, we get snow here. So unless it's a school closing type of event I'd rather not see 6 reporters, with rulers & matching parkas, doing live shots for hours on end. But we keep doing it because the ratings are good and it's simple, doesn't require too much thought or insight.

That release was the starting point for this mix, called A Northern Holiday. There are three cuts from the compilation in the mix....Brave the Cold by Vincent Oliver and Isan...Family, Giving by Peter Broderick...Snowstorm in a Snow Globe by Fuzzy Lights. From there I just looked for other tunes that fit the theme.

So grab some hot coco & trim the tree with some ambient-ish goodness playing in the background.

Another fine mix! This was the soundtrack as my son & I pit together a poster project for his science class. Ambidubtech goes perfectly with protons, neutrons, electrons, isotopes, energy shells, quarks, etc.

This new mix is a dubby, ambient affair. Even though it's similar to Alan's mixes it only has one artist in common, Quantec. This mix is not quite as beat driven, it's a bit more ambient. I was glad to finally find a place for the Tiki Obmar track.

I am really enjoying playing this one fairly loud so that the dubby basslines reverberate all over the house.

This mix is called November Buddha in honor of the new Buddha Machine 2.0 which was just released. Mine is on it's way right now. There's not much of a theme here, just a bunch of new tunes that I've been listening to lately.

The Lullaby League & Sleep Robot tracks are new discoveries thanks to the fantastic mixes from Alan(Undershadow). I probably have listened to these mixes more than anything else this year. Just an absolutely fabulous collection of guitar ambient.

Most of the artists in this mix can also be found in Alan's Axescapes mixes. A couple exceptions are Eluder, which is a brand new Infraction release. And Disturbed Earth, an excellent recording on Atmoworks.

Genesis - 1970 - 1975 Box set - Just got this yesterday so I haven't spent too much time with it yet, but so far I am very happy. Even tough I am a big Genesis fan I didn't have good quality cd's of everything. I just never got around to completely replacing my vinyl collection. I had Foxtrot & Trespass, but Selling England & Nursery Cryme were burned from friends. So this box set is perfect for me.

The sound quality is excellent from what I've heard so far. The kids were out of the house when The Lamb got it's first playing so I cranked it up very loud. So fun! Felt like I was back in college. There's a bunch of DVD extras that I haven't gotten to yet which should be cool to see.

We've been doing the reduction through attrition thing too(just lost 55 years worth of experience in one week). I work in local TV news & it's starting to get ridiculous. We've had a ton of people leave but we aren't allowed to replace them. So then we end up with photographers & editors wandering around with nothing to do because we don't have enough reporters to fill the shows. I'm beginning to wonder when we will start to kill newscasts because we don't have enough people to do the job.

If we do get permission to hire someone, we have to do it using corporate's latest trick...hire the person as a "freelancer". That way we don't have to pay benefits. We offer the carrot of full time employment some time in the future.

You know you're in trouble when management starts talking about the "exciting challenges" that lie ahead and how we will be "creative" with our budgets and how we have to "do more with less". Yippee!

bohren & der club of gore - midnight radiothe lullaby league - cantus - another good discovery from Alan's Great Axescapes mixes.Hakobune - Sothis & David Tagg - Stele - from their split 3" on Install. Good music & beautiful packaging.The Winterhouse - Lost - excellent recording, worth the price just for the title track.

I guess I'd say "City at the End of Time" was just okay. A bit too disjointed & some of the writing was irritating. I enjoyed it a bit more by the end. The first half was definitely a struggle. The pay off wasn't worth the effort. Some interesting ideas but I can't really recommend it.

I just started "Flashforward" based on your recommendation. I am only a few chapters in but so far so good. I am reading it on an Amazon Kindle, the electronic book reader thingy. Even though it's a bit pricey, I love it! There are some things I'd like to change, like the positioning of the page buttons, but in general I am very pleased.

I know some will say they would miss the feel of a real book in their hands, and I definitely know that feeling. But this thing is just so convenient & cool. It's tied directly to your Amazon account & it takes about 10 seconds to buy & download a book. I also have a subscription to Atlantic monthly that the Kindle downloads automatically. I carry it with me all the time & I pull it out & read while waiting for the kids at practice, in between computers render at work, in bed at night, etc. Obviously you can do all that with a book too, although this holds like 200 books. Sorry, I just had to rave about my Kindle.